


Hand Me Down My Suit And Tie

by Rhonda



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Female Pronouns for Grell Sutcliff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Internalized Transmisogyny, Misgendering, Motherhood, Post-Canon, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, World War I, trivia night
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda
Summary: Grelle finds a child destined to die, that for reasons, she can not allow herself to leave to its fate.Hijinks will ensue as she tries to raise a child without her boss/husband finding out, while also being a psychopomp during one of the greatest loses of life in history.
Relationships: William T. Spears/Grell Sutcliff
Comments: 18
Kudos: 35





	1. There Are No Predetermined Deaths

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically a sequel to [What An Awful Fate For My Mother That She Born A Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935485) and [Navel-Gazing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724823) in so far as it's the same Grelle with the same William decades later, but I won't officially list it as such to keep people's eyes from glazing over if they feel obligated to read it first.
> 
> Just so you know I'm currently taking a break from writing so I don't know how when I'll get back to this.

The sun was just barely beginning to peak over the ridgeline of the forest as Grelle trudged through the freshly fallen snow towards the still smoldering cottage. She loudly bemoaned her lot in death, forcing her all the way out to the sticks for the sake of a couple of lousy peasants who forgot basic fire safety. Dispatch was spread thin as it was in between the war in Europe and the new plague, and while they were getting more new recruits every day now they were raw, needed time to train, and even the ones who were accelerated through couldn’t match the number or caliber of reapers they had lent to the French, German, and Russian Divisions.

Humans seemed to have been spending the years since she died finding quicker ways to kill as many people as possible, so instead of her usual London beat Grelle was out in the middle of nowhere. While it was probably still better than the trenches from what she’d heard, with its muck and shrapnel and burning chlorine gas (she’d rather die than cover her immaculate face with one of Lawrence’s new standard issue prescription gas masks), she still was never one to shy away from complaining. 

And complain she did as she entered the burnt out hovel, not bothering to cast an invisibility glamour or even simply lower her voice. 

“Alright who was stupid enough to get themselves killed by a house fire when there’s a blizzard out?” she said as she looked around the ruined living room. Aside from the bits of fallen ceiling and the piling snow which had blown in through the hole they left, it was actually less burned out than she had anticipated, it looked like the heavy snowfalls from the night before had managed to slow and eventually stop the fire. She was a little offended by just how much of the ugly rustic decor was unharmed and briefly considered returning to finish the job once the snows let up. 

“Was it you sir?” she said as her eyes fell on the first of two corpses she had been here to reap. The poor sod had been brained pretty badly by a truss that had fallen when the roof went up. She couldn’t see his face but his physique was that of a rugged forester. He apparently slept in his underwear since he was naked except for a sleeveless undershirt and pair of plain boxers. Grelle could see tufts of chest hair poking out over the top of his neckline, which she found intriguing. She decided to pull him out from under the beam to see if he had been handsome but once she tugged on his ankles hard enough to pop him out there wasn’t much face left to see. Honestly, she had fallen for worse. 

It was actually starting to feel a little hot in the still smoldering cottage. She unbuttoned her fur lined coat and let it fall off her shoulders. It had been over a decade since she had finally been permitted to wear a skirt suit to work thanks to her dear hubby William’s campaigning on her behalf, he always claimed it was easier than filing the endless dress code violations but she knew he loved her. Despite the time, the novelty still hadn’t worn off and she smiled as she looked down at her outfit, stockings perhaps a bit too sheer and hem perhaps a bit too high for trudging through the snow, but it made her feel cute which was what really mattered. She unhooked her death scythe and revved it breaking what brief silence had fallen since she began inspecting the body. As she plunged the tip into his navel she skimmed through his page in her to-die book. He seemed like a fairly boring man all things considered and the Cinematic Record pouring out of his body corroborated this. His life had a few juicy bits, few didn’t, but mostly it was just the story of a lumberjack who married the sweet girl next door and moved out to the woods to raise their little boy.

Grelle yawned as she checked boxes and filled out a few mandatory notes, it was too early and she hadn’t been able to get nearly enough beauty sleep over the past few years. Just as she slipped the book and pen back into her pocket she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye. Scythe in hand she quickly whirled towards the source of the disturbance only to see an empty doorway. She couldn’t hear much over the low rumble of her scythe’s internal combustion engine but she heard what sounded like footsteps pattering down the room’s adjoining hall. The cabin was still too hot for wild animals to have come snooping around and the couple had no neighbors. She had admittedly been late in her arrival, and it seemed like more and more often demons were taking advantage of the strained reaper dispatch to consume the souls of fresh corpses before the psychopomps could get to them. It just had to be a demon. Grelle grinned at the thought of getting to use her lovely scythe to rip up some still animate flesh. 

“Aw, why so shy darling? I’m certain you can’t be the least comely man I’ve seen today,” she cooed after the retreating footsteps as she pursued them down the charred smoke filled hallway. She passed a small washroom before passing into a charred bedroom. On top of the high bed in the center of the room lay the burnt and asphyxiated body of the other soul she had been brought here to reap, but other than her she seemed to be alone. “Playing hard to get? You sure know how to drive a girl wild,” she said eyeing the room in anticipation of an ambush. She lowered her scythe to try and listen for any signs of movement. She quickly picked up on the sound of hurried breathing coming from under the bed, which gave her pause. Demons didn’t usually breathe unless they were trying to make a point. She lowered herself to the floor to take a look at whatever was hiding under the bed and found a small pair of eyes staring back at her.

It was a child dressed in blue pajamas, who could have been no older than two years old. He began trembling as soon Grelle’s eyes met his. Instinctively she tried to give him a reassuring smile at which he began bawling. Oh, the teeth, right. Awkwardly she rose to her feet and pulled out her to-die book looking for some explanation as to the kid’s presence. Obviously he was the couple’s son who had survived the fire but she couldn’t find him anywhere in the book. The only person who was here according to the book was a little girl who was scheduled to die of exposure that night. None of it added up unless...

Years ago when her darling Will had advocated so bravely on her behalf to let her wear her dresses and officially be designated _Miss_ Sutcliff on Dispatch Records, there had precipitated a modest set of reforms amongst the British Division’s protocol. As it turned out there were a disproportionate number of reapers that had some kind of sexual deviancy. Those who had been closeted in life tended to remain closeted in death with the nature of the reaper recruitment process favoring those less confident in their identity and of lower self esteem. Grelle and only a few others were the exceptions, but as Grelle was granted more gender affirming concessions others came forward entreating management for their own. The outcome of this was that the office had a few more options for girls night attendees and that all paperwork now bore the true genders and names of individuals rather than those that had been assigned by humans at their birth, including the to-die lists.

So this kid under the bed was like her.

She strode over to the corpse and limply slashed at it with her death scythe. She felt the familiar numbing that came whenever her job brought her to children. All the bitterness at her assignment and excitement at the prospect of a fight and passion for her work had left her. She paid even less attention to this one’s cinematic records than the last. At least up until she got to the last couple years, at which point Grelle was overtaken with a feeling she hadn’t felt in three decades. She watched this mother grow heavy with child and eventually give birth to her own daughter, feed her from her own functional body, care for her, see her grow, love her in a way that Grelle would never be able to understand. All only for her to die carelessly putting a wreath too low above her fireplace, leaving her child all by herself in her broken home to freeze alone and afraid. It wasn’t fair, how could a woman so cruelly abandon something so precious? Something that Grelle had taken her own life over the grief of lacking. She didn’t know at what point she had started crying but before she knew what she was doing she was hacking the woman’s body apart in rage. The loud revving of her scythe almost caused her to miss the little girl scream and scramble out from under the bed and out into the rest of the destroyed house.

She was making it about her like she always did, this was the child’s trauma not her’s. It was this kid who had been abandoned and left to die, not her. She was struck with a strange compulsion which she quickly dismissed. She reasoned that it would be better for the girl to perish here. This world was not for girls like them. She wished that she had before he had grown enough to realize how wrong her body was. Even now that people were more understanding she was still confronted daily with how completely she would never have the body she was meant to. It was better this way.

But a voice whispered in her head. “Sutcliff, have you really learned nothing from your penance? Need I assign you more overtime until the purpose of this work pierces that thick skull of yours?” He was right too. What was the point of watching all those lives flash before her eyes if not to teach her why life wasn’t worth giving up on. She followed the kid out of the bedroom calling after her.

“Little bo- little one, please come out, I’m sorry I scared you,” she said peeking in the charred washroom on her way back to the entrance. Even though the kid probably had no concept of gender yet she still felt bad misgendering her. She had no idea what name the late couple called their daughter, and even though the to-die list said her name was Marianne Hindley, Grelle doubted she knew it yet. Her talents as a deadly efficient reaper let her know that the tiny fresh footprints in the snow carpeting the living room had the potential to be a clue, one which she followed to a small closet near the kitchen. Its door was closed but she could hear crying on the other side. 

Her first impulse was to cut through the door and then reach in to grab the kid kicking and screaming, but one of the concessions she’d made to her husband over the years in exchange for his affection was an ounce of impulse control. Instead she tried her hand at a diplomatic approach.

“Hey uh kiddo, everything is going to be alright, so... why don’t you come on out?” Admittedly a kind of a weak first attempt but the door cracked a bit and the kid clumsily looked through. She looked awful, covered in soot and snot, her face was red with how hard she was crying and Grelle was taken aback but just how awful she felt about frightening the poor thing. Children were just so vulnerable and small and delicate and they needed compassion and protection almost as much as oxygen.

“I want mommy!” was all the kid had managed to get out before she began wailing. 

_Don’t worry mommy’s here,_ Grelle let herself think before saying: “It’s okay, I’m a... friend of your mom, I’m here to help.” She knelt down in the snow and the rubble and held out her hands in a non-threatening manner. The kid just cried and bawled and blindly sought out Grelles open arms like a baby kitten seeking out its mother's breast. She held the kid tight and started tearing up. “It’s okay honey, I’ve got you, you’re safe.”

Not since Whitechapel had she felt such an utter abject sorrow at her lack of a womb. She gently pressed her palm against her belly and felt the absence there, the absence that would always be there. She couldn’t kill this kid, she was her child. She murdered a woman for saying as much once.

The words “What use do I have for you if you’re just another woman?” reverberated in her mind as she lifted the kid up off the ground and carried her out of the only home she’d ever known.


	2. Another Day, Another Dollar! Am I Right? Ha Ha Ha!

Dispatch being spread so thin, Grelle had far more collections today than she knew what to do with. In her arms she clutched a toddler who had fallen asleep only a few minutes after being carried. Poor little thing had probably been woken up early by the fire and was up all night trying to process what was happening to her. Grelle held her close and gently shushed her when she stirred in her sleep, probably troubled by bad dreams. She was already running late because of all the extra time she took getting her makeup perfect, and now popping back to the reaper realm she’d probably be at least a whole hour behind to her next collection. Things were getting darker every day and scavenging demons were a real possibility.

There was no way she could take this kid with her on collections, even if she was awake. She didn’t know the first thing about childrearing and figured that doing so whilst hunting down dead bodies and potentially fending off demons was a terrible place to start. She didn’t know any reapers who had mothering experience. Far more men than women killed themselves and those that did had done so were generally not moms. She wouldn’t have done it herself if she had a bundle of joy in her life. Not that many women in the office particularly liked her regardless. Her darling hubby had been a husband and a father in life but he was a man from the era when men took no part in the care of children.

Shit, she hadn’t even thought about William. What would he even say if he knew she was doing this, probably nothing good, she imagined. He’d probably ask her to put the child back where she found it. He’d probably be more upset at the prospect of misfiled paperwork. William couldn’t know, at least until Grelle had a plan, had buttered him up at the prospect of raising a little girl together.

She didn’t know anyone with parenting skills but she did know someone who had a room free from prying eyes and wasn’t going anywhere fast.

Othello’s forensics lab was chilly and full of bullet riddled corpses. It wasn’t as cold as the early morning snow in the forest she just left, but it was close. The geek had a head mirror and some modular magnifying glasses attached to his regular round ones. He was wrist deep in some stiff, surrounding table covered in bloodied knives and saws.

“Does this bullet look supernatural in nature to you?” He asked without looking over his shoulder as she walked up behind him. He held up what looked to Grelle to be a mundane piece of copper. 

“Not really, no,” Grelle replied. Othello slumped down laying his head in his bloodied hands. 

“I’ve got the brass breathing down my neck, apparently one of the top reapers in Dispatch thinks that machineguns and mustard gas can’t account for all the dying on the Western Front, and it’s my job to find a way to prove why it’s demons or angels or witches or ghosts or vampires or frankensteins or wolfmans or something. This is the thirty eighth corpse I’ve dug into today and they just keep shipping more bodies in,” Othello sighed. His normally frizzy hair looked even frizzier than normal.

“Wait, was Frankenstein real?” Grelle asked confused and hopeful. 

“It was just a joke, apparently one that didn’t land. What are you doing here anyway Grelle? There’s no way you have the free time to stop and chat, and if you somehow got the day off I don’t think you love me enough just to come in and see me,” Othello said as he turned around. He looked surprised when he saw Grelle holding a sleeping toddler. He had deep bags under his eyes that Grelle wanted to cover up with concealer. He had sheepishly asked her to share some of her makeup with him a few years back and thought about bringing him in a tube but worried it might come off as rude. “Goodness, another one. Where did you pick him up? Nevermind, it was Louinsky who was investigating the string of infanticides, three doors down on the left.”

“Othello, she’s not dead,” Grelle said. Othello’s half lidded eyes opened all the way with interest. 

“Well damn if she isn’t breathing, huh,” he said, flipping the magnifying lenses out of the way to get a better view of the kid. “So Grelle, you brought a living human child to the Reaper Realm for what exact reason now?”

“Well my darling, first of all I’m offended that you thought I don’t love you enough to come visit on my weekends. I know I don’t, visit you I mean, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t. Second of all I need to ask a big big big big big big favor of you,” she said, Othello looked at her expectantly, “I really need you to watch this child for me while I run out on collections. I’m already close to an hour and a half late for the next collection on my list and...”

“Okay, I don’t run a daycare but I'll do this for you Grelle. Because we’re friends and because you’re coming to trivia night with me on Friday,” he said, Grelle deflated a little but acquiesced without argument, “but you never answered my question, why did you bring a kid here?”

“William told me to,” Grelle lied, mostly anyway considering it had been his voice in her head that told her not to leave the child to die. Othello looked expectantly for her to elaborate further but when she didn’t his face fell.

“Well if you wont tell me anything about what’s going on at least tell me, does she like licorice?”

“I don’t know, but probably not since no one does but you,” Grelle said as she rushed out the door, “Also, no one can know there’s a kid here, please, okay, thanks, bye!” Othello called out after her but she was already running down the halls hoping she wouldn’t get in trouble for how late she was.

* * *

“This is a right pretty flat it is, it is,” said a maid in her early fifties. It was small, but what it lacked in size it made up for in stateliness. It was in a quiet neighborhood and the street that Grelle could see below didn’t hustle nor did it bustle. It was mostly unfurnished, and Grelle handed the maid a wad of cash to buy whatever it was that babies needed. 

Grelle had finally managed to rush through her collections, luckily mostly uneventful, and her first goal had been to secure a more permanent place to store her new daughter. Marianne would need to stay here, at least until Grelle figured out how to explain what was happening to William. She didn’t know how long that would be so she signed a six month lease.

The maid poked around the flat appraising what she might need to pick up to make the place child ready. She bumped into an easy chair that had been left in the center of the room by the landlord and tumbled over it losing the cash Grelle had given her all over the floor. She was blind as a bat, proven by how she hadn’t seemed to question why or even notice that Grelle hadn’t aged in thirty years.

The Phantomhive Estate was a part of Grelle’s life she desperately wanted to forget but she didn’t really have many connections in the human realm. It was just easier to seek out their old Maid to take care of Mary than to try and find someone with the unique combination of competence, incompetence, and penchant for not asking questions as the staff she had used to bump shoulders with. She had greeted Grelle like an old friend when she found her, thankfully unemployed. Apparently she had been working in a munitions factory but was fired after dropping an arm full of live artillery shells and almost blowing herself away along with half of the city. She had seemed very eager to come work as a maid again, even if childcare was a bit out of her wheelhouse. 

Grelle didn’t remember her name and at this point she was too afraid to ask.

“So do you think you’ll have everything you need?” Grelle asked. The maid scrambling to pick up the loose pound notes she had scattered across the floor. Grelle was spending her life’s savings on this, not the saddest thing she’d ever blown her savings on that was for sure, but still she wasn’t going to be able to purchase any fish and chips at trivia night for a while.

The sacrifices mothers make. That thought made her start involuntarily crying. Luckily the maid couldn’t see her tears.

“I do, I do! I’ll have this place all squeaky clean and ready for your new baby in a jiffy, I will!” she said springing to her feet and giving a salute, “Mister Grelle, I don’t know how to thank you enough for finding it in your heart to employ an old washed up mercenary like me, I tell ya. One servant to another, if I had struck it rich, I’d have kept you employed too. My only regret is ‘ol Baldroy ‘n Finny ain’t around to see the day that Grelle Sutcliff hired himself a maid of his own.” She either couldn’t tell that Grelle was wearing a skirt or didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

“You do that,” Grelle said, turning to the door.

* * *

It was dark and no one was in the halls as Grelle rushed towards Othello’s lab. She hoped the geek had been too swamped with trying to find the demonic origin of trench warfare to leave his lab but much to her disappointment it was dark and he was gone. She left the Dispatch HQ for Othello’s apartments, the only place he could be unless he had planned on taking her daughter to the Pub for everyone to see. At the thought of her child being exposed she picked up her pace, eventually running down the nearly empty footpaths of the Reaper Realm.

She knocked on the door and heard him call out for her to come in. Othello’s home smelled strongly of him, having lived here for so long. His scent had sunk into the walls, the carpet, the cabinets, the furniture. It was cut with the distinctive smell of formaldehyde and other chemicals that he brought home covering his clothes. He was in his living room sitting on the floor looking at an anatomical textbook with Marianne. An open box of crayons sat next to them and she was scribbling all over the illustrations as Othello tried explaining what kidneys did. It didn’t look like she was listening. Grelle stood on the threshold to the room leaning on the empty door frame, taking the scene in. This is what every day with her child would be like. The thought filled her with a warmth and happiness she’d never felt before. Othello looked over at her.

“Oh wow, rough day?” he asked, Grelle must have been very sweaty and messy from her run here.

“In a manner of speaking yes,” Grelle replied. Othello stood up mussing up the kid’s hair and giving her a blue crayon with which to color in the nephron. Gosh, but she was cute.

“Can we talk for a moment?” He said standing close to her in a fairly hushed tone even though she doubted that the child would pay attention or be able to follow along with their conversation. Grelle was concerned about just what it was that Othello would want to talk to her about but she nodded, not really seeing any way out of it. “Who are you talking to?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Grelle replied, confused.

“Who is standing before you right now, talking with you?”

“Othello. My friend. A fellow reaper. A member of the forensics team...” she said, unsure of where he was going with this.

“So you know who I am. You should know that I would look into this kid. I know who she is, I know _what_ she is. I can piece together a crime scene, I can piece together this. It wasn’t hard. What are you doing Grelle? No, I mean I know exactly what it is that you are doing but, I’m serious, what do you think you’re doing?” he said, voice not unkind. It was accusatory but more than that it was filled with concern. The kind of tone she’d only ever heard from one other man.

“I’m not sure,” Grelle said, unable to meet his eyes, “I just… she’s like me, and she never had a chance. And I chose death rather than be the kind of woman that I am, and look what happened to me. How can you look at this, all of this, and think that the universe is trying to tell me that was the right decision? How can I make that decision again for her?”

“I don’t know Grelle, I don’t know,” he replied, putting his hand on her shoulder and rubbing it gently. She looked into his big eyes and saw the light mascara he had put on. He wasn’t the only one who could deduce a crime scene. Clearly looking into the young girl had made him start thinking about his own gender feelings again. She was overtaken by a profound wave of affection for her little geekboy friend.

“All I know is that this is something I’ve committed to, and I’ll accept the consequences of it no matter what comes,” Grelle said. Othello smiled at her and turned to Marianne who had turned forward a few pages and started scribbling on the blatter.

He gave her the textbook and the crayons and Grelle had her say thank you, like a proper mommy would as he saw them to the door.

“Don’t worry I didn’t tell _William_ , and I didn’t tell anyone else,” he said quickly as they got ready. Grelle was embarrassed being caught in the lie, but she took it in stride.

“Thank you, thank you I really appreciate it, let me know whatever I can do to repay you for everything.”

“Well, you will be coming to trivia night for the next two months wont you?” Grelle shuttered, but begrudgingly nodded, “Oh, and she does like licorice, so let me come over and see her some time huh?” he said as Grelle led the little girl out of Othello’s home.

* * *

The apartment was empty when they returned but at the very least the maid had gotten most of the things that Marianne would need to start living here. She seemed very tired and it was very late. Grelle prepared her some warm milk on the stove and brought her into her new room. Thankfully Othello had given her a bath since she was very dirty when Grelle had found her, but naturally he hadn’t had any children’s clothes available to him so Grelle got Mary changed into her new pink pajamas.

She tucked her into her new crib, and grabbed the milk and poured it into a glass bottle with a rubber nipple. Mary eagerly suckled on it and Grelle turned to pick out a storybook to read to her daughter. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz stuck out to her from the shelf. It was about a young girl from a far off exotic land called Kansas. She didn’t manage to get very far before her daughter was out cold. She took the bottle and kissed her forehead and turned out the lights before leaving the room.

It was probably irresponsible to leave a child alone at night like her previous parents had, so she slumped in the easy chair in the center of the room and let herself reflect on the day’s events. She began trying to formulate diplomatic ways to explain this to Will, not having any luck whatsoever. The door to the apartment opened behind her. She turned around to see the maid clumsily clutching a stack of loaded Lee-Enfields in her arms.

“Sorry, I forgot I needed to move these in, too.” One slipped out of her arms and hit the floor with a deafening bang and a fresh clean hole was produced in the wall poking through out into the night sky. Grelle strode over to her gingerly taking the stack of rifles from her arms and helping her place them on the floor. After setting the guns down she turned to the maid and roughly grabbed her by the collar picking her up off the ground and slamming her against the wall next to the hole she had made.

“If you ever endanger Marianne with one of your pathetic human boomsticks again, I will torture you to death every day, for the rest of your life. You will never die and I will make you wish that you could. And then when I am sick of playing with your pathetic body I will feed your soul to a demon and you will cease to exist,” Grelle said, enunciating every syllable, unable to contain the rage that was coursing through her. She roughly slammed the maid against the wall again for emphasis.

“S- s- sorry sir, I uh… It’ll never happen again I promise, just call me Ms. Gun Safety, if you please,” she pleaded, face struck with a kind of fear that Grelle had never seen in the woman before. She let her go and she slid to the ground. The look of fear was quickly replaced with one of betrayal. “Phantomhive nor Sebastian never did threaten us with violence,” she muttered. Grelle ignored it. Marianne was too important to spare the feelings of this woman.

The loud noise of the gunshot had woken Mary and Grelle rushed in to stop her from crying. She regretted not rushing to her immediately and instead letting her anger take over. That was just another motherly instinct she lacked from her unfortunate male body. Her body wasn’t meant to bring life into the world, it was meant to take it out. She shut her eyes and counted to ten until the bad thoughts left her, returning to focus on her daughter and help her back to sleep.

The maid watched awkwardly from the corner of the room, dutifully nodding at her after her kid had been put back to sleep and Grelle told her that she was heading home for the night.

* * *

Grelle opened the door to her home. It was all dark save for the light coming from her husband’s study. She peaked in to say hi on her way to bed.

“You’re home late,” William said. This was the first time Grelle had ever made it home from work after William who usually spent so much time in the office. 

“Yeah, just another busy day,” Grelle laughed nervously, walking in to lean over his desk and kiss him on the lips.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, even at home this late at night he was still pouring over work documents. The war was running him ragged and she knew that she was his one anchor in all of this craziness. He kissed her like she was the only thing keeping him afloat in a sea filled with monsters, before retreating back to praise her more, “You’ve really been applying yourself lately, I really love that about you. You’ve changed so much since we first met and you make me want to change too. 

“It’s been a really long time since I’ve had to defend any of your rule breaking to the higher ups and, well, I just wanted to say that I love you,” he finished holding her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over her palm, looking her squarely in the eyes.

“You silly man, let’s get you to bed and away from all this work nonsense,” she said, pulling him out of his chair and leading him out of his study. 

Grelle didn’t know if what she was doing was right. Grelle had lost her morality when she’d first been hit for putting on a dress. The morality of a world as cruel as this one could never be one that she’d be compatible with. Still, there was a part of her that felt terrible for keeping this from her husband. However, it could never be as big or as influential as the part that made her feel terrible for having been born without a womb.


	3. It's Always Good To See A Friendly Face In These Trying Times!

She fell asleep, he wondered if he should sleep too. William felt her smooth sticky body draped over his own. She was so thin and soft. She only ever showed this softness to him, to everyone else she was just about the prickliest Reaper in Dispatch. She’d built up that tough spiny exterior after a life and subsequent afterlife of exhausting violence. Over the years he’d worn down that shell and found the sweet loving woman she was always meant to be buried beneath. Now, he just needed to do the same for himself.

The only difference was that beneath her exterior was a beautiful intelligent charming woman. But just what was behind his own mask? He was worried that whatever it was might not be the better alternative.

Women were so… fragile. So delicate. Perhaps he was working her too hard. He wasn’t too proud not to fudge a few other Reaper’s schedules into having just a couple more collections. The only thing stopping him was being accused of playing favorites. His career was important to him, and he didn’t want to be forced to choose between it and his wife. He was afraid of what he might pick.

No, it would be best for him to do the extra work himself. It was late, but there would surely be more time to sleep later if he could just get a few more ‘i’s dotted and ‘t’s crossed.

He tried to lie to himself and say that he was needing less sleep the longer he was a Reaper, but that wasn’t even remotely true, and he was always bad at lying to himself. That didn’t change the fact that he truly wanted to get more work done now, if only to save his future self the trouble. If he got enough work out of the way perhaps he could take her to that new Antony and Cleopatra movie in the human realm. She’d like that. She always liked Shakespeare and was far more interested in the new technology of motion pictures than he was.

The only thing preventing him from standing up was the way Grelle herself, specifically her body, was firmly holding him in place, sprawled out across his own. There was a time when he’d shove her off of him, or worse, without a second thought. 

Women were so… fragile. So delicate. He could never understand them. 

He had always preferred the company of men. He had always preferred no company at all. But Grelle was different, at least to whatever extent that William could ever allow himself to be vulnerable around anyone, he was vulnerable around her. She was a woman through and through, but in his innermost thoughts he wondered if being brought up as a boy had made her an easier target for his understanding. He wondered if even thinking that was an act of disrespect.

She didn’t grate on him like everyone else did. At least not all the time. During the rockier parts of their relationship there were certainly times when there was nothing more infuriating to him than her presence. During those times, those many times, he’d done and said things he regretted. He at the very least had the good decency to sort of feel bad about them now, in a way he never had before. Certainly not when he was alive. Certainly not in a way he did for his previous wife, even now.

She’d helped him grow, but more importantly made him want to in the first place.

No, her body was stuck to him, sweat having dried into a sticky glue. To separate now, to go back to work, would be terribly painful. He didn’t want to wake her. Might as well get some sleep, then.

She would never unstick them, why should he?

* * *

Grelle was stopped in a crowd gathered on the sidewalk to watch a complement of American troops parading down the boulevard. Well, either they were here to watch or they were innocent bystanders who just had their busy days ground to a halt by the road being cut in half. She didn’t have time for this. She could cast a glamour or simply leap across over the sea of heads, but the crowd was too thick. Her invisible form would surely bump into everyone and jumping over the crowd would be far too noticeable. The thought that she could have simply combined the plans didn’t come to her until later, to her annoyance.

Bloody Yanks, sending more bodies here to die for nothing. Just making more work for Dispatch and not accomplishing much else. The least they could do is send over some Reapers to help out too. No, she shouldn’t jinx it, the last thing she wanted was an influx of crass American Reapers clogging up the London Dispatch. Surely the vulgar lot would all take to her like flies to honey, hardly respecting that she was a married woman. A group of them might corner her in the hallway and their leader would lay on a slick line about just how beautiful she was. She’d blush and avert her eyes like a proper lady and he’d grab her chin with his big calloused hand and firmly turn her head to look him in the eye. And he’d say-

Oh look, the parade passed, wonderful.

She had gotten her morning collections done quickly and now she had a break to check up on Marianne and the maid before she was due for a double murder in Uxbridge. She walked up the stairs to the apartment door and unlocked it before proceeding in.

She was immediately accosted by the maid who looked severely distressed.

“Oh, it’s a disaster Mister Sutcliff, a right disaster it is!” she shouted. Grelle’s unbeating heart sunk into the pit of her tummy and then clean through her legs past the floor and into the London Underground. Grelle grabbed the older woman by the shoulders, probably squeezing a little too tightly because she winced in pain. She loosened her grip slightly despite the growing panic in her gullet.

“What!? What happened!?” Grelle shouted into her face, mind racing with horrible worst case scenario after horrible worst case scenario.

“I’m so terribly sorry, I am! I’ve made a grievous error! You’ll never be able to forgive me, no you won't!” she shouted back, before whining under her breath: “Aw, you’re gonna do all that awful torture stuff to me, I’m sure of it.”

“I sure as hell will if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on,” Grelle said, shaking her. So much for trying to not let the spirit of violence overtake her. 

“Well, I misheard you, yes I did! I think my ears are finally going the way of my eyes! I thought you said your son was named Marianne, I did! I bought him girls clothes and girls toys and girls books, I did!” the maid said fretfully. 

Grelle deflated and let her go. Of course. She never properly explained the situation, she really didn’t know why she didn’t think this would happen. The maid had to come to her own conclusions when she gave Marianne a bath this morning. Seeing Grelle calm down caused her to do so as well. 

“You were so polite as to not correct me last night, sir,” she said with a nervous relief. “Instead, letting me discover my mistake for myself. That's the sign of a good employer, it is. I say your new status in life suits you well.”

“Maid,” Grelle started, still not remembering her name. It felt rude but she didn’t really care. “You didn’t hear me wrong, Marianne is my daughter.”

“Bwuh? But- Ah! The old child gender switch gambit! I’m more than familiar with it myself, yes I am! My lips are sealed sir, yes they are,” she said, lips slowly curling into a small smile. Grelle didn’t see any need to correct her, it didn’t really matter what she believed so long as she did her job properly. “Oooh, this is exciting, yes it is! Been a long time since I was privy to any intrigue. You placed your trust in the right woman for this task Mister Sutcliff, I promise you that.”

“I should hope so,” Grelle said. This whole, having a servant thing was coming a lot easier to her than she expected. Grelle peered in through the door to the nursery, the maid really did do a good job decorating the place. She should probably not be so harsh on her. Grelle had never had power over anyone at any point in her life or death, and bossing people around was addicting. She wondered if that was what William felt like all the time. “Go ahead and take a break for half an hour, I have some time before my next engagement and I’d like to spend some time with my daughter.” The maid nodded and left them alone. 

_“So much authority Sutcliff, really playing the part of the stern father now,”_ said a voice in her head. She wasn’t quite sure whose voice it was this time. It sounded like William, but then again it was also so very much like her late mother. She ignored the voice and moved to where Marianne was seated playing with blocks.

Blocks had always been the one toy that Grelle played with as a child. Forbidden from dolls and uninterested in boys toys she had always defaulted to blocks. The leading child psychologists of the day said that blocks lead to the development of a keen awareness of space and a technically proficient brain. Maybe that was where she got it, she wasn’t too developed in any other theatres.

She sat with the little girl who didn’t look away from the small structure she was building, but did say hi and babble a bit at her. Such a polite young lady. The structure didn’t look a whole lot like much of anything, but she built it with an intensity and fervor, like she knew exactly where each block was meant to go before she placed it. She was impressed with how quickly she had adapted to her new home. Kids that age, their minds were like a sponge, just absorbing the present state of the world around them as immutable and eternal, like a world state object permanence. She wondered if the kiddo would even remember the fire, or her birth parents. 

Grelle hoped she could do a good job as a mother, she still hadn’t the faintest idea what she was doing, but she was doing a passable job faking it. She’d need to get William in on this soon, he was so smart and always knew exactly what to do. She’d need to think up a way to break the news to him soon but she didn’t have the faintest idea of where to start and the longer she put it off the longer she’d be flying with her wings clipped as it were.

She looked at the kid, and tried to help her stack blocks. She tried her best to mom, saying cute little phrases and telling her the names of the shapes the different blocks came in. These blocks were a whole lot nicer than the ones she had as a kid, a lot less splinters and much more variety. She told that to Mary and she nodded her head although Grelle wasn’t sure she really understood what she was saying. She didn’t know what a kid her age should be able to understand or even what her age was. She should have written down her info when she had the chance but now that she wasn’t on that predetermined death path it had faded from her to-die book.

She kept checking her pocket watch, wanting to savor as many moments with the child as she could. But the half hour passed quickly and she was needed elsewhere, despite how desperately she wanted to stay. Being here almost felt like she was able to capture that ineffable woman feeling she longed for. Almost.

She tousled the kids hair and made her way out through the living room where she saw the maid field stripping and cleaning her rifles. Luckily it didn’t look like any were loaded and Grelle spotted a locked gun safe in the corner.

“Ms. Gun Safety!” the maid said, giving her a thumbs up and a toothy grin. Grelle could have sworn she even added a small sound effect to the smile.

“Ms. Gun Safety,” Grelle confirmed. She supposed it would serve as good of a name for the woman as any, she certainly couldn’t keep calling her maid, that was for sure.

* * *

The rest of the week passed by smoothly, or as smoothly as things could get these days. The rhythm of living a double life came easy to Grelle and when Friday rolled around it almost felt like she’d been doing this for years.

She was walking through the central atrium of the building when Othello intercepted her. She was going to see if she might slip off to the human realm to spend some more time with Marianne before heading home to meet up with William, who she knew would reliably be working late on Fridays, but it looked like Othello had other plans.

“So, are you excited for Trivia Night?” he asked. Grelle sighed, she had honestly forgotten she’d agreed to it and wish that he had too.

“Not really, no.”

“I don’t appreciate that negative attitude. Come on, it will be fun! My team has been dominating lately, we can carry you to victory. You can be our designated gloater,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her to the closest portal back to the human realm. She had to admit the idea of gloating didn’t sound too bad, but at what cost?

They walked together down the dark London Streets. It was raining, a thick cold rain that threatened to turn to sleet. Othello had forgotten his umbrella and typically didn’t wear his overcoat being so used to the cold of the Forensics labs. Grelle held up her red umbrella to cover them both. He seemed outwardly oblivious to the action, but he still stuck close by her.

They eventually got to a pub that was marked by an old carved wooden sign that swung back and forth in the wind. Despite the rain Grelle still paused to look at it. Upon it were two round hedgehogs facing away from one another on a whitewashed background. The sign had seen better days, she figured it had been two decades since it last was repainted and the once vivid browns and whites of the sign had faded. Now the Hedgehogs were more of a ruddy copper, and the white paint had flaked off giving the appearance of two animals trapped in a snowstorm.

The Twin Hedgehogs was a pub in the human realm that the Reapers of London Dispatch had been frequenting during their time off for centuries. She wasn’t sure for just how long, but certainly longer than she’d been a Reaper. She often wondered about its owners and whether they saw anything out of the ordinary with the large number of green-eyed bespectacled besuited individuals that frequented the establishment. It had probably just been that way for so long that they never questioned it.

Originally it had taken a lot of doing to get Othello to start coming here with her. Even if he pretended like he didn’t, she knew he hated leaving the safety of the Reaper Realm. He was such a strange fellow, Grelle could tell he loved socializing and yet he rarely seemed to seek it out. Eschewing it to the point where he’d even actively avoid engagements until he was actually there, where he’d always have a wonderful time.

But ever since he discovered the weekly Trivia Night put on by Mark and David from Requisitions, it had become the exception to the rule. He seemed to really enjoy competitive social events, Grelle suspected there was something about the structured collaborative nature that appealed to him. To her it seemed like reciting esoteric facts about history and literature was the least interesting thing to do at a bar, but to each their own. 

It was nice and warm inside, and the place was crowded with Reaper and human alike. They headed towards the back where Mark was setting up amongst a crowd of mingling Reapers. Grelle recognized more than a few faces from her Department, plus a few extra from other departments. They waved at her, and she tried to put on a brave face despite being caught participating in this geek event. Othello led her to a booth and they slotted in amongst a group of other Forensics Team members. She quickly introduced herself and just as quickly forgot all of their names.

They were all geeks but affable enough, and some even managed to be half as cute as her friend. Speaking of whom, she only just noticed he was wearing some immaculate doe-eye eyeliner that made his already big soft eyes look even bigger and softer. When did he get so good at that? She was gazing at him jealously when they started talking about Louinsky’s investigation and she excused herself to go get some food and drink.

She’d always been vaguely unsettled by child death. There was a time when she had almost convinced herself it didn’t bother her in the slightest, but those days were long gone. Especially given recent developments, her sensitivity in that area had gotten ever more fragile. Not only that but she really didn’t have any interest in thinking about work whenever she didn’t have to. Kids deserved so much better than what this world had for them. She regretted not doing more for any of the children that had previously been in her life.

She got up to the bar and ordered some food before instantly remembering just how broke she was having spent her savings on the apartment, the furnishings, and the maid. No fish and chips tonight it seemed. The sacrifices a mother must make. Still, she scrounged around in her purse and found a few coins with which to get a pint. It was so weird letting herself eat traditional pub food and drink beer. Only a few decades ago she would have avoided the stuff for fear of its implicit masculinity. Now she could let herself indulge and she didn’t exactly know why. Maybe it was because she felt so much more assured in her identity ever since she started wearing the skirt suit and had been officially designated Miss on all her files.

“Senior Sutcliff!” came a voice from behind her, breaking her from her reverie. She wondered just how many more she’d be in tonight.

“Ronald?” Grelle said, turning to her ex-apprentice who came up to the bar next to her. She had long since given up trying to get him to stop using the honorific. Giving up on trying to get him to use her married last name was a more recent development, but no less of a crushing defeat. In between Ronald, Ms. Safety, and her own internal monologue, it really felt like no one seemed to acknowledge she was Mrs. Grelle Spears and not Mr. or Ms. Grelle Sutcliff. Although with Ronald she could never discount him doing it just to mess with her. “Are you here for Trivia night, too?” she asked.

“Oh no no no no no no no. No no no. This place is just the easiest to convince birds that don’t usually leave the nest. I’ll tell ya, Lynette from Accounting might be a bit mousey, but underneath frumpy sweaters she usually wears, well… Just wait and you’ll see.”

“Pft,” Grelle snorted involuntarily. She wondered if Reaper boys ever grew up. “You mean Squeaky? I highly doubt she could be worth the trouble. Unless that voice is your new thing? Where is she, then?”

“I think she should be getting here any moment now,” he said looking around. As if on cue the door to the pub swung open and they both peered over the heads of the crowded room. It wasn’t a cute mousey girl as Ronald had implied, instead there stood a large broad shouldered man who made quite the unique silhouette against the dark rainy London street. He had a shaved head and a pair of spectacles that looked too small for his round chunky face. Grelle almost didn’t recognize him for how weathered and exhausted he looked.

“Oh crap, is that Hinckley?” Grelle asked, perhaps a bit too loud, thankfully drowned out by the din of the pub.

“Yeah, apparently he came back to London a few days ago, but he hasn't come in to the office yet. I think your husband’s giving him time off,” replied Ronald much quieter, turning his head towards her but leaving his eyes to linger on the old Reaper.

“He looks like shit,” Grelle said, not shying away from speaking the obvious, at least when she couldn’t be overheard. She always remembered Hinckley to be such a formidable and passionate Reaper. It looked like he’d lost a lot of weight and his posture was slumped and exhausted. Three months ago he’d been sent along with dozens of others to assist with the mounting need for Reapers with the war in Europe. She and him weren’t friends by any means, but their cubicles were kitty-corned with each other once, and he used to always offer her drinks with raw egg in them, saying that they’d put meat on her bones. Even across the bar she could see the ways his eyes were unfocused, staring off at somewhere far far away from here.

“Yeah, they say his partner deserted. But he hasn’t talked to anyone yet, there are all kinds of rumors. That she was blown up by a human bomb or torn apart by a machine gun or… Well, like I said there are all kinds of rumors,” Ronald said, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

“Is it really that bad out there?”

“I heard it’s worse. I heard that there’ve been field mutinies, entire Retrieval crews deserting at once and killing their superiors. What’s more, I’ve heard that certain crews have been allying with demons to lighten their workload. I’ve heard there’s even been-”

“Ronnie!” came a squeaky voice and they both turned to see a petite Reaper in a neat little black dress covered with an oversized woolen sweater. Grelle gave Ron a look, it looks like she’d have to wait till later to see the body supposedly worth tolerating that voice over. “Who is this… woman that you’re with? I thought we were going on a date!”

“No, this is my friend, Grelle. You remember Grelle? She’s my old peer trainer.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance once more, Lynette,” Grelle said. “Don’t let me stop you two from your date, now. I think the… Well, the _trivia game_ is about to start, so unfortunately I must make my egress, toodloo!” She started to walk away before remembering the pint she’d paid for that had been sitting untouched on the bar for some time, tiptoeing back over to grab it.

So what if she hated Trivia Night? Like he said, Othello and the geek squad would carry her to victory and winning always felt nice, no matter how pyrrhic. Getting carried gave her ample time to think, and think she did. She tried to brainstorm the best way to let William know about Marianne, but every time she weighed the options for just what he might say, her mind drifted to images of trenches and of brave young men having their souls devoured by scavenging demons. Of mustard gas and biplanes and officers turning guns on their own retreating troops. Was this going to be the way of the twentieth century? Was this the world that her daughter would grow up in? Maybe she’d made a mistake in that cabin after all.


	4. They're Thinking About Frootloops All Day

Grelle hung limply off his arm as they made their way to the concession after purchasing their tickets. He was happy to have her as his, and more than any point in their relationship he was actually glad to be seen together with her. He loved her with all his heart, all of it that could love that is, and he wanted the world to see that. Not just that she was his but that he, William T. Spears, was able to love with the best of them. He reached his hand down to take hers, interlocking their gloved fingers together.

She looked up at him with tired eyes, and he matched her gaze in both love and exhaustion before turning to the teenage human the theater owners had manning the popcorn machine. Grelle’s exhaustion was a good sign. One that she was really picking up slack around the office, one that her heart was really in her work for once. The night she had come home after him wasn’t a fluke, and since then it had happened more often than not. He was proud, more proud than he’d ever tell her lest she mistake his approval for condescension.

They got a bag of popcorn to share but she didn’t seem all that interested in any of the other snacks or goodies on display. Still, he bought her a box of crackerjacks which she gazed at longingly with big watery eyes. The yankee confection had surged in popularity around town with the influx of American soldiers and Grelle had been hooked on them ever since. It was important for a man to know how to make his woman happy. Even if he didn’t understand the esoteric logic behind women, he could at least learn their material desires. Grelle hungrily tore it open and began munching on them, finishing the box before the film even started.

The theatre was actually particularly empty, they were only two of about a dozen or so movie goers. The film had been out for a while but this was still atypically sparse. It must be the pandemic, people were becoming increasingly afraid of public spaces. It was for the best, it meant less work for him if people managed to make the right decisions and not die quite as much. And the relative quiet of the theatre made for a nice change.

Grelle had the nasty habit of talking during movies as well as presentations, plays, and just about any time she wasn’t supposed to, but today she was uncharacteristically quiet. At first he was excited to note another positive behavioral change, but halfway through the movie he realized it wasn’t for her finally learning to respect decorum and public spaces but rather because she had fallen asleep. It wasn’t for a lackluster film either. Theda Bara’s performance was stellar and she was quite striking as the Egyptian queen. He felt bad she was missing out.

Grelle loved Shakespeare and he had been excited to discuss the adaptational choices in the film, but seeing as she was snoozing her way through it the discussion would unfortunately probably never happen. He didn’t wake her, instead sitting up to remove his overcoat and draping it over her body. She just curled up in her seat like an especially fluffy red hedgehog. He pet softly at her slumbering head while he continued to watch the film.

Knowing how the story ended didn't keep William from feeling sad as Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s tragic romance came to its catastrophic conclusion. That was one of his own little growths, now he could feel sad at stories. He could really feel truly bad when bad things happened to others in a way he was never able to before, all because of the silly woman sleeping next to him. He scratched a little at her scalp behind the ears and she let out a soft mewl.

Reluctantly, he woke her when the film ended. She greeted him with half-lidded eyes and a sheepish kiss on the cheek, clearly embarrassed at having fallen asleep during the date he planned especially for her. She stretched out her sleepiness and he was taken by a compulsion to reach out and tickle her tummy as her blouse came untucked, one that he squashed. He was more comfortable with public displays of affection than he once was, but not that comfortable.

It was a matinee showing and even this late into the winter there still were a few slivers of daylight left when they exited the theater. To make it up to her he offered to take her on a stroll through a nearby park. Despite the cold dead landscape and the grim circumstances of the world they lived in there was still more than a lot of serene beauty to the place. Spindly leafless trees reached up to rake across the dimming overcast sky. The wet earth to either side of the cobbled path was rife with intricate patterns of frost. Grelle shone bright and warm against the cool stark backdrop with her red hair and skirt suit, and he always found his eyes being drawn to her. She was by far the most beautiful thing to ever come from this world.

“I don’t really care for the human realm but when I’m here with you, well…” he said as they rounded a corner into a large clearing surrounded by trees that kept the space free from the troubles of the modern world that still faintly hummed and buzzed around them. Down the embankment the path ran along was a frozen pond that a group of children were skating across.

“Well… you love it because you love me,” she finished for him, giving his hand a little squeeze.

“I was going to say that it’s tolerable, but yes, Grelle, I love you,” he said, giving her a small genuine smile. She’d certainly earned it. Grelle slowed down and stopped to lean against an iron park bench.

“You love me so much that you’d come with me to a place that you hated?” she asked with a smirk while watching the skating children with a strong fixation.

“I mean it used to seem like I’d be dragged out to the human realm on your behalf all the time. I certainly prefer coming here to spend time with you, instead of bailing you out of another puerile mess of your own creation,” he said not unkindly. Any observer might think his tone cold and demeaning, but he knew she knew the light hearted way he meant it.

“Yeah…” she said trailing off. He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek and her lips turned into a smile of their own.

Even during this nightmare of Sisyphean toil, this peaceful moment still existed. As the world was falling apart there was still this park and there was still her. In a few hours he’d need to lock himself away in his study to try and make up for all the work he missed with this date. For now however, he would do his best to be here and live in this peace. He had certainly earned it.

“Do you think that ice is thick enough?” Grelle asked suddenly out of nowhere. It was such a strange question that it took William a few minutes to process it.

“You mean for the children skating upon it? Probably,” William answered. “I can check the to-die book if you’re curious.” It wasn’t typical of Grelle to worry about matters of work when she was off the clock, but maybe that was just another aspect to this new Grelle. He reached into his breast pocket for his notebook.

“No please!” Grelle shouted, putting her hand over William’s though his overcoat. She grimaced and slowly retracted her hand. He looked at her face intently trying to figure out the situation, worried he had misread her signals like he always did. She looked away from him and he realized he was staring, probably with a scowl of his own. He took her hand in his own and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m sure the children will be fine, I don’t see any of our colleagues anywhere,” he said, taking a wild stab in the dark at what had Grelle feeling so touchy. That seemed to work since she relaxed a little and her grip got less stiff. She’d always had such a strange relationship to children, at times loudly proclaiming her distaste for them and at other times bemoaning her infertility. He’d long since learned that reminding her that all Reaper women were infirtle regardless of sex was a surefire way to end up sleeping on the couch, so he just brought her into an embrace. She was as soft as she was small, and she buried her face in his chest.

They stood like that for a moment, with her just pressed against his body. He listened to the steady rhythm of her breathing, a silly frivolous habit but one that he accepted. He knew she liked to smell him and he had even begun wearing cologne she picked out. She opened her mouth as if to say something but just as quickly closed it.

Instead she turned her head to watch the children skating around on the ice. He offered her a seat on the bench and she graciously accepted. She lay her head on his broad shoulder and was quiet and still. Whenever he’d look down at her he’d be taken by just how far away her stare was. If it wasn’t for the deep bags under her eyes that even her foundation couldn’t cover up he’d wonder if there was something else beyond the exhaustion from work that was bothering her. Even after a century and then some she was still an enigma.

The light slowly faded from the day and it was right around when William was going to suggest they begin to head back to the Reaper realm when one of the children, a heavier set boy, stumbled into an unintentional pratfall in the center of the pond. His impact with the ice was met with an audible crack and a lattice of fissures spreading out from the point of impact like he had been caught in the center of a spiderweb.

Grelle let out a small shriek and before William could blink she was standing and about to break out into an all out sprint towards the boy. William grabbed her by the sleeve and put a hand on her shoulder. 

“He’s not going to die, don’t worry, we needn’t do anything. This is our day off, Grelle,” he cooed reassuringly into her ear. She didn’t take her gaze off of the boy who scrambled to his feet, more than a little spooked. His friends checked to see if he was okay, and they retreated to the pond’s edge to gather their things and head home in the twilight. Only then did Grelle turn to look at William, more than a little embarrassment in her eyes. Clearly something was bothering her beyond just the work. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I’ve got… I’ve got a lot on my mind, okay,” she said. That was as vague as it was obvious.

“Do you want to tell me about any of it?” he asked perhaps a bit too harshly. He just wanted to invite her to open up but instead he was coming across aggressive and suspicious in the exact way that he never intended to. Grelle let the silence hang between them for a while, then a while more. William took her by the hand and started to lead them back towards the Reaper Realm. “Listen Grelle, I’ve got a lot on my mind too. I apologize for not having been very… emotionally available lately,” he said. Perhaps if he opened up she might be more forthcoming. Grelle pondered what he said for a moment.

“I forgive you, I certainly haven’t been home as much as I’d like for you either.” She said. Unfortunately for him, Grelle seemed just as reticent after that as ever. Perhaps if he shared privileged information of his own.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this but there’s been a memo from the UK board of directors. We’ve sent official missives requesting temporary staffing transfers from America. The New England Dispatch has already confirmed a dozen Reapers to London. We’re going to be covering this in tomorrow's briefing.”

“American Reapers?” Her tired face went bright red, William hadn’t the faintest idea why.

* * *

It seemed like almost all of her free time, what little amount of it that she had, was spent in that apartment. Ms. Safety served as a fair enough nanny but Grelle still hated the idea of leaving her daughter alone with the woman for more than she had to. Especially given her general clumsiness. That, and the more time Grelle spent in Mary’s presence the closer she got to feeling like a real woman. Closer but never able to reach. That true woman’s world that she was always pressed up against the glass of looking in, so close she could see it without her spectacles.

She wondered if she simply needed to spend longer here for the elusive motherhood feelings to finally find and overtake her. Spend more time with her daughter doing whatever it was that women did with their children. Perhaps her first mistake was pawning her off onto the maid and not giving up her career to raise the child full time. As if she were even permitted to. 

Tonight was a night like any other except for the fact that she had stopped by the grocers on the way to the apartment. If she cooked a meal for her daughter she’d feel more like the mom she wanted to be, she was sure of it. Besides, she had spent a century fumbling her way through frozen meals and sneaking home leftovers out of the Dispatch campus cafeteria, it was high time she got around to really practicing her cooking skills, if only to be a better wife. William deserved to come home to a warm meal at least once.

She took off her overcoat and put on an apron in the small kitchen before setting a pot full of water over the stove. A few chopped tomatoes and crushed cloves of garlic later she had a pan full of thick red goop that might pass as pasta sauce. The sauce was bitter and acidic, she wasn’t sure exactly what she needed to do to fix it, so she tried turning up the heat and stirring it vigorously adding salt and parmesan until it was, well good wasn't the right word, but palatable most definitely. She added a little more cheese before putting in the fresh noodles she purchased. After a few minutes they were soft and even she could tell they were fully cooked. She mixed them together in a large serving bowl and set it out on the small dining table in the center of the room.

She tried her best to imitate the spaghetti she had in the fancier Italian restaurants William used to take her to, but it didn’t even manage to reach the level of the spaghetti that they served in the cafeteria on Thursdays, meaning absolutely no ill will to Spaghetti Thursday.

Marianne seemed to enjoy it regardless and if Ms. Safety didn’t, she kept it to herself. The two women sat around the table helping the toddler in her highchair eat the pasta. Naturally it was only a matter of minutes before the sauce was everywhere and a proper mess was made all across the table, but Grelle still figured it could have gone worse. The kid actually did eat it for one. Getting children to eat at all had turned out to be a surprising challenge in childrearing that Grelle wasn’t prepared for in the least. She kept running into things like that, weird challenges and obstacles and frustrations that she had very little knowledge of and chipped away at what little resolve she had that motherhood was indeed her calling.

She persevered but she still felt wholly unconnected to womanhood throughout it. Maybe it was because she didn’t have the crucial core from which she always believed the ethos of womanhood emanated. But neither did Dalles, and neither did a lot of women. There wasn’t just one thing to womanhood. It was a series of circumstances, some physical, some emotional, all coincidental. Circumstances that were both material and immaterial. Somehow Grelle had managed to build herself from the ground up from all the individual pieces that a woman might be made out of, and yet she still seemed to be wholly lacking. Inside she still just felt like a clueless pansy boy.

“Ms. Gun Safety, you are a woman,” Grelle said out of nowhere after wiping a streak of red sauce off of Marianne’s forehead.

“Bwuh?” said the maid, leaning far back in her chair so she could get the best look at Grelle. “Well, yes I am, but…”

“Why?” Grelle asked not looking up from her daughter. She felt kinda silly asking a question like that, especially of this woman, but there really weren't that many women she knew, and she wanted some insider insight.

“Well, uhh… because of my…” she stammered, growing red in the face. Grelle didn’t know why she expected anything deeper out of her. Not that it was her fault, Ms. Safety didn’t need to seriously think about her gender all her life, having been born the gender that she was. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Grelle said, finally offering the woman a lifeline after she’d been stammering for a minute or two. “It was a silly question.”

Marianne splattered sauce across her face again and Grelle moved to clean it up. There was a silence. Grelle felt awkward. She really ought to have a better rapport with the woman who was raising her child. She turned and offered her a smile which Grelle wasn’t sure if she could see. 

“So how’s your life been over the last thirty years?” Grelle asked, hoping to spark some casual conversation. Casual conversation really was one of Grelle’s weakest points, at least doing so in a way that actually came across as friendly and not impudent or facetious.

“Aw, really nothing too interesting I assure ya. Just maid things is what,” she said, which Grelle highly doubted knowing her former employers, but she wouldn’t push the subject. “I might ask the same of you, ever since Madam Red’s untimely passing we never really saw ya again.” The mention of Angelina caused Grelle to bark out an involuntary laugh. Grelle wondered if she might be having any better luck in her place.

“Well, I got married, for one,” Grelle answered, not really knowing how to answer the question. The finer details of her life primarily concerned her relationship with William and the time she spent with her friends. To sum it up would be admitting that all she really did was her job.

“If ya don’t me asking, who is she? Anyone I might know?” the woman asked from behind her. Grelle turned away from Marianne to look at her. She must have sensed the confusion because she clarified, “Your wife I mean, not Marriane’s mother. I don’t need to know who the mistress of the Sutcliff household is, I don’t.” 

Of course, Ms. Safety still thought Grelle was a man, she kept forgetting. Grelle couldn’t even begin to imagine being married to a woman, let alone siring a child, but it made sense as a guess considering Grelle hadn’t explained a damn thing to this woman. She had thought she’d be able to keep this woman in the dark until she didn’t need her anymore, but Grelle simply couldn’t abide the thought of someone believing her not only a man, but a man married to a woman cheating on that woman with another woman, so some honesty was necessary.

“I’m actually a woman, I have a husband, and Marianne is a child I’d like to adopt that my husband doesn’t know about yet,” Grelle said after considering her words for a moment. That seemed like a tight explanation that perfectly toed the line of what the woman needed to know and what she didn’t.

“Oh my, oh my!” the woman said getting even redder in the face than before. “That certainly explains the way you’ve been dressing, my apologies but your old disguise as a man was right impenetrable. I had no idea! I simply thought you were on the forefront of men’s fashion or something!” The woman was stammering again and seemed embarrassed, but it still went over far better than every other time she came out to anyone. Other than with one person that is.

“Yeah, disguise,” Grelle confirmed. It was true enough, Ms. Safety didn’t need to know anything else.

“So Mr....”

“Spears.”

“He doesn't want a child and you do, then? Well that’s right terrible, it is.”

“Fuck yeah it is!” Grelle said before sharply inhaling and turning to Marianne who was thankfully too fixated on squishing the spaghetti around to pick up on the swear. She still subconsciously lowered her voice. “Yeah, I know I need to tell him about Marianne, but I just don’t have the right words, for once in my life.” It was probably because she felt so guilty, the only times she couldn’t come to him with her woes was when she knew he would chastise her. Still, she knew he’d come around regardless she just needed to do it, it was like ripping off a bandage.

“I can imagine! Any idea where those words you’re looking for might have gone?” the maid asked. She was already a very warm and open person, but she seemed more relaxed around Grelle now that she knew she was a woman and her posture reflected that.

“I just need him to empathize with my perspective,” Grelle said, putting her head in her hands, mindful enough to wipe off the pasta sauce first. “But I have no guarantee he will, you know. If I had some kind of guarantee then maybe. Talking to anyone, even people you love, is always a gamble with rejection. Whether they’ll see your perspective or close you off. Being known by others is sometimes the scariest thing there is I think.” Grelle looked across the table past the plastered over bullet hole and out the window into the black winter night. There were so many people out there, so many souls with beating hearts. Countless little souls drifting around in that black night all alone unable to ever truly know each other. In their line of work they were uniquely able to connect with people, albeit in their final moments. Making direct contact with one’s Cinematic Record for even a moment was more emotion and intimacy than anyone ever got in their lives. Perhaps that was why William was so talented a reaper given his general lack of empathy.

And still demons ate souls whole, however did they stand it?

“Well that’s proper insightful, I never took you for one so enamored with the conundrums of philosophy, I didn’t,” said Ms. Safety. Grelle suddenly remembered who it was she was talking to.

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” Grelle said noncommittally, before standing up and taking the dishes with cold leftover spaghetti on them to the sink.

The maid washed the dishes and cleaned up the mess of both the mother and daughter alike while Grelle gave a Marianne a much needed bath. After that was bedtime, and Grelle managed to get a few more pages into Wizard of Oz before the kid was out for the evening. She bid Ms. Gun Safety a farewell and headed home for the night, sure she’d run into William in his study like she always did. Maybe she’d think of some way of confessing on the way there, but she doubted it.


End file.
